Battle of Salamis app review: a history app with interesting facts about an ancient battle

Introduction

People who know me will tell you I’m quite a history buff. I really enjoy playing games set in a period of time in the past (or the future for that matter), and I love reading about times past. I’m always in the market to find out something new and learn from history, especially in times of war. Luckily, I was led to the Battle of Salamis app by Inverse. This app is developed for both iPhone and iPad and tells you all about this famous battle between the Greeks and the Persians. The app does a lot of things right, but there are a few points on which it could improve. You can read all about that in the next paragraphs. Battle of Salamis is available for $0.99 in the App Store.

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What does the app have to offer?

First, let’s talk about simple information. The app includes everything from all the facts to information about all the people who had something to do with this battle. Seeing that this battle took place about 2500 years ago, it’s very impressive that the developer was able to gather all this information and stick it into one app. Another cool feature is that you can explore the Trireme, which is the battleship of that time. A full 3D model is at your disposal and you can move it around to check the ship out from all sides. Lastly, there is also a 3D map view, where you can see what exactly happened in four different phases. This is very interesting for the strategists in us, as it gives great insight on how the battle took place.

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A few downsides of the app

There are a few small issues I had with the app. Some of these are personal views, while others are simply not efficient by the developer. First of all, there is the music. The music fits really well with the app, and luckily can be turned off, but if you don’t switch it off it can be pretty annoying after a short while. Secondly, there are the backgrounds. On some of the pages, the backgrounds don’t really work well as a backdrop for text, making it very hard to read the information supplied by the app. 

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Pros and Cons

Pros

• A ton of interesting information about this battle
• 3D Trireme and battle progress

 

Cons

• Loud and repetitive music
• Sometimes text can be hard to read

 

Conclusion

For anyone studying Greek or Persian history, I really recommend this app. Even though it costs $0.99, the information in the app is well organized and the 3D models are really cool to play around with. The music can get on your nerves, but you can switch that off. The app is developed for both iPhone and iPad and weighs just over 150 MB, which is a bit large.